Develop This, Says the DRECP

See this view from high in Juniper Flats? Now picture it with myriad 300-acre swaths of shimmering PV panels, industrial wind farms featuring 500-foot-tall wind turbines, and wide new roads blasted across the delicate desert soil. And imagine the whole scene crisscrossed by giant transmission towers and networks of 500kv transmission lines.

That’s only if you can see anything through the dust kicked up from all the newly scraped soil, rendering the whole scene like an image from the Dust Bowl era

Much of what you see in this image is DFA: development focus area. DFAs are swaths of land that the DRECP says can be sacrificed for the goal of sending expensive energy over the hill to L.A., up to the Bay Area, and throughout the West.

For us, a scene like this is why we choose to live and visit the Mojave Desert. We hike or drive to such viewpoints to seek solitude and serenity. Maybe to play on the boulders, watch birds, take photos, have a picnic. For big energy developers, a scene like this has dollar signs written all over it. They care nothing about the environment of the desert. They care nothing about the lifestyle of the people who live there. They don’t care that desert and mountain tourism contribute hugely to the local economy and to San Bernardino County’s coffers. Endangered species like desert tortoises? “No problem. We’ll mitigate.” Right.

This is why we’re pushing hard to save the foreground of this landscape by having it declared National Conservation Land. You can sign our petition for that cause by clicking here.

And this is why we’re pushing back against the DRECP in public comment hearings and in written comments. Much of Lucerne Valley and Apple Valley is slated for intensive industrial energy development. We’re telling the planning agencies that we don’t want our desert desecrated for unnecessary, outmoded, industrial-scale energy projects.